What traits would you like to see in your doctor? This deceptively easy question haunts medical educators every day. Medical school admissions ideally must screen for but academic ability and ethical behavior. A recent editorial from England suggests that cognitive ability is a better predictor.

As we have noted previously, medical schools in the United States have very small attrition rates, particularly compared to law schools. Having done both I am hard pressed to see any reason to account for this discrepancy except the obvious conclusion- medical schools do not effectively “eliminate” inappropriately chosen students. Instead they are promoted and graduated.

I applaud the English proposal. Anything to improve the quality of medical school entrants should improve the quality of the product.

Ask your doctor where he/she went to school. Ask how long it took him/her to graduate. It’s your health- take care of it.